


dreamed a dream last night

by sicklyscribe



Series: Brothers [2]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Season/Series 02-03 Hiatus, lullabies laments and stalemates, ogappreciation18, screaming babies are a universal timeless constant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicklyscribe/pseuds/sicklyscribe
Summary: “In the Interim” -  Writing set during any of the gaps between seasons“The number of their worries growand with them the number of their solutions —but the answer is often a heavier burden,even when the question hurts to bear…”





	dreamed a dream last night

**Author's Note:**

> From the #OGAppreciation18 event on Tumblr. Originally posted [here](http://sicklyscribe.tumblr.com/post/176710870481/dreamed-a-dream-last-night).

“Freya, the bunny isn’t working, the Beethoven isn’t working, the aromatherenchantmentwhatsits are  _definitely_  not working, and I –” the screeching monster (he adored her really, he did, but his ears were  _already the most sensitive ears in the world_  and  _she was trying to deafen him_ ) in his arms had taken a gasping breath and was back at full decibel volume, and well,  _that_  should convey exactly the kind of urgency he was trying to elicit in this 1:38 AM phone call. “– Just, please, get over here.”

He considered calling Marcel, Marcel was always good with children, wasn’t he? In theory. Klaus couldn’t ever recall Marcel tending to an actual infant.  _Klaus_  was the one who used to be good at this, a millennium ago, almost as good as – 

Klaus’ thought stopped in his throat like an aborted sob. He gulped it down, pacing and pacing and pacing that rug bare. He pressed a kiss to his daughter’s fussy, anger-flushed forehead.  _You’ve already checked her temperature three times, and all it’s done is make her angrier and you more convinced that the thermometer is broken._  

What if she really was sick? When was he supposed to run at full hybrid speed to an emergency clinic, and compel the smartest-looking doctor there to give Hope his full attention? What if this was some strange, witchy wolfy vampiric infant virus that – 

Any sound that wasn’t his pacing feet, shuddering breaths, or Hope’s animal wails was an epiphany in those moments, so when the lock clicked downstairs and the front door opened into the courtyard, Klaus nearly wheezed with relief. 

Someone was running up the stairs, so fast, much faster than Frey–

“What’s wrong?!” Elijah was out of breath, meeting his tired eyes with frantic ones as they slid from him and zeroed in on his agonizing niece. He seemed confused, and Klaus’ expression joined in it once he fully realized that Elijah was  _here_. 

“She – she won’t stop crying,” Klaus tried to keep his voice from cracking, tried to be the confident and capable parent he  _needed_  to be in front of Elijah, he couldn’t give Elijah  _one more_  reason to hate him, not now. 

Elijah ran his hands through his hair, still dazed. Klaus now noticed the hair was sopping wet. A plush black hoodie had been thrown over long sleep pants… and accented with a pair of hand-made italian leather dress shoes. He was looking at his phone, and  _laughing_  under his breath?

He pressed a button and Klaus strained to hear Freya’s voice over Hope’s sobbing, and the din of wherever the hell Freya was. 

“ _’Lijah! You’ve gotta– – – ing out – – urgent – – Hope can’t – – Klaus – gotta run!_ ”

When the voicemail ended, the two brothers locked eyes over the screaming baby and for once they were on the same page:  _our big sister is a well-intentioned mess when she’s drunk._  

Elijah broke the glance by looking up to the ceiling and heaving a relieved sigh. “I thought –” he couldn’t finish the sentence; only sighed again. 

There was the briefest of pauses in Hope’s wails. When she started up anew, Elijah’s attention was all on her. 

“I suppose…” he said softly, nearly an apology, “while I’m here.” He tried to shrug it off. 

Klaus did the same. Passing the baby to his elder brother had been difficult for him in the past few weeks, when Elijah would visit Freya and Hope and pointedly  _not_  visit him. The monster in him knew that he would never have had this chance with his daughter if Elijah had not clawed and kicked and spit – in the most distinguished of ways, of course – beside him and against him to this very end.  _Or, one with a hundred percent more present parents. At least._  

The monster in him knew that Elijah’s goal for over a year had only ever been to give Klaus the chance to love his daughter. The monster in him feared, above all else, that there would come a day when Elijah would realize that his daughter was too precious, too good, too innocent to be loved by him. That she was a much more deserving recipient of his blind devotion than he, and in one fell swoop he would lose them both.

The monster was barely a passing thought as Elijah reached for his niece in this moment. “Hello, sweetheart,” he cooed into the screaming bundle. “What’s got you so upset, now, hmm?” He gave her his finger to grab and throttle, and she took it eagerly. It reminded Klaus of the afternoon of Hope’s first day, in this very compound. 

Klaus recited the list of actions he had taken since the start of the fit, nearly three hours ago. Elijah nodded, occasionally humming or whispering as he rocked the baby girl in his arms. A few drops of water from his wet hair dripped onto her, but she was too fed up to notice. 

He then watched as his brother’s eyes narrowed and focused on the floor. The calculation he made was quick, but significant. “Niklaus, she’s nine months old.”

When Elijah moved his finger from Hope’s fist to pull gently at her bottom lip, Klaus cursed himself for being so  _stupid_. He had pointedly avoided reading any of the modern baby care literature Elijah had left sitting around the house during the pregnancy, but he didn’t need a book to tell him  _this._

Klaus immediately moved to be close to Hope, which meant he was close to Elijah. Their heads hovered an inch away from the other as father and uncle both gently ran the pad of a finger over Hope’s irritated gums. This, of course, only made her scream louder, but Klaus felt as if an entire mountain had been lifted from his back. 

The brothers looked at each other, and for the second time that night, there was peace in their connection as they laughed, breathlessly. The smile didn’t leave Elijah’s lips as he addressed his niece again. “You know, your Auntie was just this size when her teeth started coming in, too.” 

“Was she?” it wasn’t just Klaus’ voice that broke, it was everything within him. “I can’t remember much about her and Kol as infants, but–” He couldn’t say the name. The brother’s eyes flicked to reach one another’s gaze for the briefest of seconds, the image of a tiny honey-brown-haired baby boy in their memories.  _He had teethed early, and it had scared and confused them all._  

 _He had teethed early, and the only one who could calm him had been Niklaus, rubbing his angry gums and singing about dreams._  

Klaus heard Elijah clear his throat. Without a word Hope shifted hands again, and Klaus found a rhythm in his swaying steps around the room and his gentle press along the ridge of his baby’s gums. 

“I forget so much about him,” Elijah whispered after many long, long minutes, and Klaus only heard it because Hope’s wails were turning into softer whimpers. “I don’t remember the sound of his voice anymore.”

It was an awful thought, but Klaus  _could_  remember Henrik’s voice. He didn’t wish to share the memory with his brother, though, didn’t want to describe the strain of Henri’s throat as blood pooled in his lungs and he pleaded “ _Help me, Nik–”_  

His eyes were wet and he had to sniff back the gathering tears. “I remember his smile, sometimes.” he offered instead.  _I remember his fear and pain, always._  

“Another thousand years and I couldn’t forget that,” Klaus could hear Elijah’s own smile as he spoke, still a whisper. 

“I’m so sorry,” the Hybrid ducked his head down, curled himself over his child, not sure who he was apologizing to but knowing that the pain in this room was  _his_  fault, it always was, and it had started so long ago, and he couldn’t stop it.

He felt his brother move in the room, felt him standing at his shoulder. 

“You didn’t kill him, Niklaus,” he was pleading, why did  _he_  sound like  _he_  was the one apologizing? “And you didn’t kill us.”

 _I killed our mother_ , Klaus added.  _I cursed my child’s mother._

The hand that had been missing on his shoulder softly made its way into place, gripping him gently and securely and stopping the black cloud of torment that had been spilling from the core of him ever since that night tied to the cross, forced to lose himself, after having lost Henrik, lost his life, lost his identity, lost Tatia.  _You are a monster among monsters_ , the memory told him.  _You, you bastard, do not even have a family that wants you for who you are._  

Hope’s crying had turned to fitful huffs and gasps. The scent of her – baby shampoo and diaper paste and  _Hope-ness_  – filled his nose. Elijah’s grip tightened, slid to cradle his neck. A tear dropped silently onto his baby’s nightie. 

“I’m sorry, Elijah. I don’t want to be this way.” The apology was not a thousand years old, this time, it was frustratingly recent. Frustratingly… perpetual. 

Again, he heard a smile in his brother’s voice, but he felt the pain in it too. “Why else do you think I’d never leave you?”

His hand had stopped in his reverie, and Hope began to fuss again. Klaus’ tears fell readily now. Elijah leaned in, cupped her cheek, but leaned further until the brothers’ foreheads rested against each other. It only lasted for a moment, but Klaus felt himself begin to knit back together – just a little, just for a moment, just for now. 

Elijah’s hand still rested on his shoulder as he began to sing. 

“ _Drømde mik en drøm i nat_

_um silki ok ærlig pell,_

_um hægindi svá djupt ok–”_

His brother’s gentle voice faltered, with emotion, with a failing of memory, perhaps. 

Klaus remembered. He remembered his mother singing it to him, Elijah singing it to him, when nightmares of wolves and serpents kept him from going to sleep. 

“Mjott _,”_  he offered in a whisper. 

Elijah took a breath, smoothed his hands over Hope’s forehead. “ _um hægindi svá djupt ok mjott_

_um rosemd með engan skell.“_

Klaus found himself joining in for the second verse, this time remembering that this had been his lullaby to Henrik, as well. To Tatia’s child, the fussy babe, and he cursed himself for not giving it to Hope ‘til tonight.

But it felt right to give this song to her alongside Elijah. It felt right.

They sang, Klaus’ mediocre timbre hiding beneath Elijah’s handsome bass. When one forgot a word, the other remembered, or filled in something that sounded right. No one on earth was still alive to tell them they had got it wrong. Rebekah was terrible with lyrics. 

Hope calmed after a few rounds, and Klaus’ tears dried up, and they started the song over again as they crept cautiously towards the crib. Elijah picked up the blanket and the two teddies as Klaus lowered her onto the mattress. When she was settled, her uncle tucked her in. It would be a few more months before they could leave her stuffed animals with her at night, but they stood watch over her on her dresser across from the crib, the bunny and the wolf. 

“ _Friðinn, ef hann finzt, er hvar_

_ein firrest þann mennska skell,_

_fær veggja sik um, drøma þar_

_um silki ok ærlig pell.”_

Once more, for good measure, they hummed through the tune another time. Klaus stood nearly mesmerized by the soft but oh so powerful in-and-out of his daughter’s calm breathing. 

He felt Elijah’s hand on his shoulder one last time, but it was not as soothing as it had been before. This was a goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> This song’s earliest record is hundreds of years after Klaus and Elijah’s childhoods took place, but we only know the first two lines. The version I’m using is a modern re-imagining (and an adaptation into old Norwegian, rather than old Danish, which is perfect) of what the rest of the song might have sounded like.
> 
>  
> 
> _I dreamed a dream last night_   
>  _of silk and fair furs,_   
>  _of a pillow so deep and soft,_   
>  _a peace with no disturbance._   
>    
>  _And in the dream I saw_   
>  _as though through a dirty window_   
>  _the whole ill-fated human race,_   
>  _a different fear upon each face._   
>    
>  _The number of their worries grow_   
>  _and with them the number of their solutions —_   
>  _but the answer is often a heavier burden,_   
>  _even when the question hurts to bear._   
>    
>  _As I was able to sleep just as well,_   
>  _I thought that would be best —_   
>  _to rest myself here on fine fur,_   
>  _and forget everyone else._   
>    
>  _Peace, if it is to be found, is where_   
>  _one is furthest from the human noise —_   
>  _and walling oneself around, can have a dream_   
>  _of silk and fine furs._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  – [source](https://www.realmofhistory.com/2017/08/02/oldest-norse-song-codex-runicus/) (and [explanation by the composer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBnYyCe774Q))
> 
>  
> 
> As for the rest of the fic, I didn’t really put much thought into how old Hope would be during this time, since it makes my head hurt to think about. I did reference baby development schedules, though, so Hope’s ailment isn’t all that uncommon for however old she was during the interim. 
> 
> Elijah holding Hope’s hand is a reference to [this](http://sicklyscribe.tumblr.com/post/143354995606/some-vignettes-from-the-few-hours-klaus-hayley) s1 finale drabble I wrote a while back!


End file.
